The Main Points about Karma

Karma refers to the mental urges that bring us to act in compulsive ways. Acting out these urges, we reinforce our old habits and condition ourselves to acting in a certain way. So we continue to repeat our patterns of behavior and we experience our moods going up and down.

If we want to break free from these up and down changes, we need to become mindful of our mental urges and choose not to act them out. If we do this, in time we will slowly change our attitudes and replace destructive behaviors with constructive ones.

In general:

• Be mindful of the urges you're feeling
• Allow negative urges to arise and depart naturally without acting on them. This will gradually weaken them and allow you to break your old habits.

When you realize you acted out a negative urge, you can lessen its impact on yourself by:

• Admitting it was a mistake
• Regretting what you did
• Intending to stop repeating that action
• Finding ways to repair the damage